I have a friend who I’ve known for about 6 years and although we live in different parts of the country now we still talk on the phone every few weeks and meet up once every few month.
Anyhow, over the last 6 or 7 months she’s been a little more withdrawn, just seeming like something was off but she kept denying it and saying things were fine. I didn’t push it as although we are still in touch regularly I wouldn’t class myself as being a close enough friend for her to automatically confide in if she were going through difficult times.
However, she phoned me this morning in tears and told me that about 9 months ago her son had told her he was gay (he’s 17) and although she is absolutely fine with it, her husband cannot cope with it and has basically stopped interacting with their son in any meaningful way. The DH has told my friend that he doesn’t know how to act around their son anymore and he doesn’t know what to say to him. The son still lives with them.
My friend had been hoping that his initial reaction was just that….an initial one that was due to shock and that as the days and weeks progressed he would be completely accepting of it. My friend says things are getting worse though, the atmosphere in the house is awful and that she can’t bear to see her son looking so upset about it all. She said her DH isn’t outrightly nasty to their son and is still polite to him and asks him how his day has been etc but she said her DH is struggling to hide how disappointed he seems to be.
It got me thinking about my own children and what I would do in a similar scenario and I just couldn’t envisage staying with a DH who was so unaccepting of our child.
I did ask if she felt she could stay with her DH and she then started getting angry with me, saying it’s not that easy and how dare I suggest she leave her marriage over this etc. I was a bit taken aback to be honest.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said it but it was just the first thing that came to mind as she was so upset when telling me she didn’t know if she could carry on living in that environment because of how it was affecting their son.
Was I unreasonable to ask her that? Maybe I did cross the line but it just seemed like the obvious question but then again maybe it is easy for me to say when it’s not me in the situation.